Is onsite SEO simply a usability audit?

It’s not uncommon for SEOs to make recommendations which will improve the usability of a client’s website although will have little-to-no impact as far as the search engines are concerned.

I’m not talking about fixing the navigation structure, applying no-follows to certain pages to help sculpt the flow of linkjuice, converting image links to text where possible, tagging and using alt tags on images etc. etc.

I’m talking about things like using meta-description tags. Meta tags haven’t been used to improve search results since the days of Altavista, but having a compelling meta-description can improve click-through rates. Now one could argue that improved click-through rates are one of the many factors that will help increase your ranking, so technically this could still be classed as an SEO technique, but I personally don’t agree that it is. I still tell my clients how important it is to have a meta-description that will make people want to click, but I also tell them that piece of advice isn’t an SEO technique.

Another example was when Gord Hotchkiss commented on an animated banner that spanned the top quarter of a webpage during a ‘website clinic’ on the final day at the recent SMX Sydney. Basically he said that due to the banner changing so frequently, it would detract peoples attention away from the content on the site and that would likely cause an increased bounce-rate.

Now Gord knows his stuff when it comes to eye tracking, and the point he makes is incredibly valid… but once again, taking the image away or moving it to another section of the site won’t improve your rankings with the search engines.

This brings me to the factors that do have an impact in the search results. Things like a well structured navigation menu, the use of a sitemap, not using dynamic URLs, using URL-Rewriting and 301s to avoid canonicalization issues, unique content, avoiding javascript, avoiding flash, tagging images, use of robots.txt files etc. etc.

All of the above (as well as the many factors not mentioned) make it easier for the search bots to navigate your site and index your content. These factors are held with such high importance by the search engines for one very simple reason – it improves the users experience.

So good onsite SEO should really have more of an emphasis on usability than anything else.